butch please

I’m a hairy short-haired sonuffabitch in plaid and denim that by that boy’s definition, and so many other definitions I’ve heard, is considered by society to be one of “those ugly lesbians”. And honestly, I ain’t even mad.

There is something strange about the street harassment I receive as a butch in that it is often terrifying and extremely triggering, but something about it makes me feel justified. I am glad these men see me as a threat.

Sometimes I am proud as a stone of my genderqueer identity. But sometimes I miss womanhood with a fierce hot ache that feels an awful lot like missing my mother, or my grandmother, or my ability to sit at their table for family meals.

I have every faith in you, baby butch. I know you will be careful with this word and its legacy. It looks like a badge but it feels like a battleaxe, and I need you to know that it’s five times as difficult to earn and ten million times more dangerous.

Why is it that time and time again, people act like they can’t make me uncomfortable? That as a butch — as well as a queer person, a top, someone who likes to flirt and be sexual just like most human beings — it’s impossible to sexually harass me?

“It’s easy for us to say that we don’t participate in the patriarchy because we are women, or because we have been women, that we have known what it’s like to be objectified, oppressed, fetishized. The thing is that we queers can perpetuate rape culture just as much as the next frat boy…”

If you’ve read this column, you’ve probably come to understand that I have a bit of an obsession with the written word. I find that self-expression through language is very powerful stuff, and in the right hands, it can be positively erotic.

“I’ve seen some queer people who insist on holding doors, and other queers who use their stilettos to step on the feet of the men who do the same. I love them both, but I’m not sure if I can call sides in a concept of gentlemanly behavior that’s much older than any of us.”